


alone

by kinases



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinases/pseuds/kinases
Summary: howon doesn't hate physical contact—it's just that he's never been taught not to hate it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by howon's appearance on "my father."

(men don’t hug.

this is what howon learns early on, through stern lectures and sterner hands. he learns that men don’t need physical contact, that they shouldn’t want it, and he keeps his hands to himself whenever his friends throw an around his shoulders in school. it’s knee-jerk now, the reaction he has whenever one of his friends tries to pull him in for a hug after they score a goal during a football game. it’s easy to follow when he’s ate home—hojae and hojun aren’t big on physical affection, either, and he doesn’t remember the last time he’s even touched his father.

it gets harder when he leaves home, when he makes himself a new family in the heart of seoul.)

 

it’s just him and sunggyu and woohyun and dongwoo and myungsoo right now—some trainees have already left, and howon feels like shit for thinking that it’ll make it easier for them to debut. he and dongwoo are in charge of coming up with new dances, and they’ve spent countless sleepless nights in the practice room running through moves and trying them out, and it feels like they’ve spent eternity there when howon finally gets a section that he’s proud of.

“holy shit,” dongwoo gasps out after howon shows him, and before he knows it, dongwoo’s on his feet and bounding over to the middle of the practice room where howon’s still crouched over and looping his arms around howon’s neck and squeezing him. he doesn’t expect his body to react the way it does, but he doesn’t forget the way dongwoo’s face looks when he pushes dongwoo away from him, violently, hard enough that dongwoo’s sent sprawling across the floor.

“fuck, hyung, i’m so sorry—” howon’s on his knees now, hunched over dongwoo, and he hopes that his eyes can say everything he can’t. “i’m so sorry, i’m just—i’m not used to this kind of hugging—stuff.” 

“it’s alright. not everyone’s like me, i get it,” dongwoo grins, and he clasps howon’s hand in his. “we’ll start with baby steps, then.” 

 

woohyun is weird, howon thinks. he’s an alpha, but he’s so—touchy. he’s always been told the alpha should be the one who keeps his emotions in check, since he’s also always been told the omega’s more prone to lose control of what he feels, but woohyun turns this on its head. he’s emotional, overly so at times, always screeching about one thing or another, and it annoys howon more than it really should.

today, it’s just the two of them in the dorm since they won the rock paper scissors game just beforehand, and everyone else is out going grocery shopping. they’re sitting with their backs resting against the couch in silence, tapping away on their phones, and howon has never been more acutely aware of the space between them. there’s enough space for two other people to sit between them even though they’re the only two there. howon doesn’t mind, though—he appreciates his space.

he’s halfway through reading an article on naver when he feels the soft thump on his shoulder, and he instantly freezes. without looking over, he knows it’s woohyun, that it’s woohyun’s head that’s just landed on him. gingerly, he brushes woohyun off of him before he gets off, dusting off his pants and heading back into his own room so woohyun can sleep in peace alone.

 

sungyeol is even worse. at least he’s not like woohyun, howon thinks, clingy and needy and far too attached to sunggyu to be healthy. but sungyeol’s brutally honest in a way that howon hasn’t seen since he came up to seoul. sungyeol doesn’t mince words, and it reminds howon of someone else who’d spoken to him like everything he said was wrong.

it happens during a music show, when howon’s just minding his own business, waving around the bouquet of flowers on stage and posing for fans, and he goes rigid when sungyeol loops an arm around howon’s waist and pulls him in for a hug, and howon almost reflexively pushes him away. “stop,” sungyeol hisses into his ear, “don’t be weird in front of cameras.” 

sungyeol apologizes to him later, curt and tense in a way that makes howon think—that lets howon know, with one hundred percent certainty—that either sunggyu or myungsoo’s forced sungyeol to come to howon’s room and tell him he’s sorry for pushing the hug on howon. howon accepts the apology, and sungyeol lets the door shut behind him with a bang when he leaves. howon doesn’t stop thinking about what sungyeol had said, though, and he turns over sungyeol’s words in his head the entire night.

 

the news of sunggyu’s solo is pretty big. the news that it’s doing pretty well is even bigger, and howon thinks that woohyun’s never smiled wider than the instant they watch sunggyu take his first trophy as a solo artist. a win like this, howon thinks, merits some sort of celebration. but he hasn’t gotten the chance to go out and buy anything, and the convenience stores are probably all going to be closed by the time sunggyu gets back.

there’s one thing—howon worries his lower lip with his teeth, thinks about what he’s going to do for nearly the entire afternoon, runs it over in his brain until he fully familiarizes himself with it. he even tries it out in the bathroom, watching himself go through the motions in the mirror before he realizes that it looks pretty fucking weird, doing what he’s doing for so long.

that’s why, when sunggyu opens the door of their dorm at two in the morning, howon rushes up to him. they stare at each other, and sunggyu’s about to sidestep howon so he can put his things down before howon’s leaning forward and tugging sunggyu closer into a hug. “what,” sunggyu breathes out, even as he’s reaching up to pull howon’s head into his shoulder, “is this?” 

“congrats on your win,” howon says, and he wonders how he could ever have thought that it would be so weird for him to touch people when it feels so good.

 

sungjong’s not too big on physical contact, either, which is something howon’s glad for. the two of them can just sit in silence that’s not awkward or strained for hours, and he appreciates sungjong’s company. sungjong’s an alpha just like him, but the main difference, howon thinks, is in their physical appearances. 

he knows he looks more like what an alpha should look like than sungjong does, and he knows that sungjong’s dealt with more backlash than he could ever know about because of the way his eyes are shaped, because of the way he styles his hair, because of his voice. he can’t help thinking, though, that in spite of all of this, sungjong hasn’t tried to overcompensate, hasn’t tried to be more typically alpha when the world just wants him to conform.

it happens on a saturday night. sungjong rushes into their room, and after looking around, almost wildly, he beelines straight for howon, who’s sitting in the corner just watching some dance videos. he doesn’t even flinch when sungjong buries his face in howon’s neck and throws his legs over howon’s thighs and pulls him close. “i fucked up, hyung, i fucked up,” sungjong mumbles into howon’s skin, and howon knows, by the way sungjong smells like myungsoo, from the tears seeping through his shirt, just what’s happened.

 

in retrospect, he’s glad he met myungsoo. he’s glad he met myungsoo, someone who thrives on physical contact and affection, and he’s glad he hadn’t frozen up that one day—that day myungsoo had come into his room when sungjong was out, that day myungsoo had asked him with his voice clear and even, if howon would help him with his next heat. 

his first instinct as an alpha had been _yes, yes, a thousand times yes_ , his second instinct as a friend had been _as long as that’s what you want_ , but his third instinct as his father’s son had been _only if you’re fine with me leaving right after you’re done._ he’d said something in between the first and second choices, and had completely repressed the third one, and he’d watched the way myungsoo’s face had shifted from calm acceptance to genuine shock and surprise.

he’d gone with myungsoo then, and he’d helped myungsoo for all three days, nipping along myungsoo's jawline and pressing his fingers into places only myungsoo had touched before, and when it was over, he’d sat by myungsoo’s side and wet a towel and patted myungsoo’s face clean of sweat and come. myungsoo had sleepily blinked up at him and mumbled, “thanks, hyung, for everything,” and he’d shifted just slightly so that he could put his head in howon’s lap and howon hadn’t pushed him away. he’d sat there, threading his fingers through myungsoo’s hair until dawn broke and myungsoo finally, finally fell asleep. 

he thinks, now, that if he’d left myungsoo there on his own after everything was over, he’d never have forgiven himself.

 

(he’s learned, by now, to ignore the voice in his head that tells him that because he’s an alpha, because he’s a man, he doesn’t need anyone else. there are a hundred reasons to keep his emotional and physical distance from others, but there are a hundred and one reasons to let people into the walls he’s unknowingly built around himself and his heart in the past years. 

he hopes, beyond anything else, that they’ll be around to teach him more—how to rub someone’s knuckles so that they’re comforted by it, how to hug someone so that they feel like he really cares about them, how to kiss someone so that they feel everything he feels.

it’s not enough, but it’s a start, and howon knows that this is just the first step.)

**Author's Note:**

> feedback and concrit are, as always, welcomed and appreciated! ♡


End file.
